When we talk about execution, we are not just talking about the “end of a life”, but about chains of poverty, injustice, and forgetfulness; we are talking about a path that slowly drags a “human” to a point of no return. In the depths of society, where the voices of the weakest are heard less, there are stories that never make it to the headlines; stories whispered about men and women who have become victims of unequal systems and inflexible laws; narratives about those who are neither professional criminals nor mafia bosses, but rather “beggars” who have been deceived in a burning market, just for a piece of bread at night.

This report is the result of an exclusive conversation with three prisoners in Iran whose identities remain confidential for security reasons. The questions were the same for all three prisoners, but the answers bear witness to various pains, shattered hopes, and a truth that may have been less heard of. These narratives are the voices of those who have been silenced under the unjust sword; human beings with bitter fates, but understandable and lost futures in narrow and dark prison cells. It is the story of those who are not heard in their defense, nor do they have a chance to return. Only a sentence, silence, and the black fate that befalls their families. This narrative is about executions in a country where its rulers have pushed society towards a direction that, according to reports from international organizations, has broken the ten-year record of carrying out death sentences and has accounted for more than two-thirds of all recorded executions in the world.

You will read the conversation of peace talks with three prisoners under the sentence of execution below.

Accusation and legal process until the issuance of a verdict.

Each of the three prisoners has been charged and convicted with drug-related crimes. One of them was arrested for carrying “more than 50 kilograms of heroin,” the second for their role in a “heroin production kitchen,” and the third for “8.5 kilograms of crystal meth” in Hamedan. Their life stories, even before their arrest, tell of poverty, unemployment, and desperate attempts to survive. None of these three had a criminal record. They were small members in the lower layers of smuggling networks, not the main designers and leaders of the drug mafia. They were small-time dealers who, according to their own accounts, had no motivation other than providing for their families. From the moment of their arrest to the time of their death sentence, the path for all of them has been filled with uncertainty, fear, and despair. Two of them have received their final death sentence in two to three years, and the third, after three years of uncertainty, has finally been spared from

Initial reaction to the death sentence.

The initial feelings of prisoners after hearing their sentence vary from “shock” to “gradual acceptance”. The first prisoner says, “Two years after my arrest, I had endured so much psychological pressure that I was prepared to hear the execution order.” He adds, “In prison, there are rumors of execution every week. You hear so much that your mind becomes numb.” The second prisoner has a completely different state: “My world was destroyed. I had gone for 5 million tomans. I never thought I would receive the death sentence.” He describes the initial shock with a feeling of disbelief and anger. The third person, who was later saved from execution, recounts, “When I received my death sentence, I felt like my life was over, my family was also shocked. I attempted suicide several times, and the effects are still present. My left hand is no longer the same as before.”

Court and justice, or the lack thereof.

None of the three prisoners consider their trial to be fair. All three have lawyers, but they describe it as “useless.” One says, “In the revolutionary court, the accused has no voice. The lawyer is useless.” The third prisoner describes it as follows: “The judges are trained to issue harsh sentences. It’s called a court, but the outcome is clear from the beginning.” According to them, the court session is usually short, superficial, and with minimal involvement from the accused or their lawyer. The second prisoner believes that if there was a real opportunity for defense, they would never have been sentenced to such a punishment: “They didn’t even let my lawyer defend me, they just said the case is clear. I wasn’t someone who deserved to be executed for five million tomans.”

The impact of the death penalty on one’s perspective towards life.

The experience of life with a death sentence is a collapse of hope for all of them. The first prisoner says, “Life is over. I have been in prison for seven and a half years. Before I was imprisoned, my car was worth twenty million tomans, now it’s worth eight hundred million tomans. Time has been lost, life has been lost.” The second one says, “I have become hopeless. I have nothing left to lose. I have two children whose future has become dark.” And the third, who is now begging for mercy from the prison guards, says bitterly, “I wish I was executed. Thirty years of imprisonment is a slow death. In this situation, no one will marry me. I have no future.”

Time, nights, and endless nightmares.

Prisoners say that the concept of time has disappeared for them. Nights do not free them from the nightmare of death. The first prisoner says, “Every Tuesday night, we only sleep with the fear of who will be next tomorrow.” The second one adds, “Every night I wonder if I will be executed or not.” This shared nightmare has taken hold of their minds like haunting shadows. The third one says, “I work during the day, but at night I think about a future that may not even exist. Even after a sentence reduction, the thought of execution remains in my mind.”

The impact of judgment on the family.

All of the interviewees talk about the collapse of their families. One was the head of two families and had three children, the oldest of whom is six years old. The second one also has two children and says that after the verdict, they lost their spouse and children. The third one sadly says, “My family was not criminal. When I received the death sentence, everyone’s attitude towards me changed. Some of my friends and relatives cut off ties with me. It was hard for my mother to see her son sentenced to death.”

Hope for salvation and a view towards execution.

None of them have any real hope of overturning the verdict. One says, “There is no justice in this government, so there is no hope.” Another knows hope as “one percent.” They all have the same opinion about execution: “This punishment is neither deterrent nor corrective.” According to one of them, “We were workers, not criminals. Real mafias are never executed.” The second prisoner believes that the judicial system does not differentiate between major criminals and weak individuals: “We are executed for a few kilograms of drugs. Those who move billions are set free.”

Final words.

At the end of the conversation, all three have a message for society. The first prisoner emphasizes, “Before issuing a death sentence, thorough investigations must be conducted,” and addresses the judiciary, “If your own child makes a mistake for the first time, will you execute them?” The second one says that the laws are flawed and “real criminals are never executed,” and the third, with a bitter and honest tone, says, “The head of the judiciary must do something so that the prisoner can return to society after five years, not be forced to commit crimes again.”

These three narratives, although heard from three different individuals, have a unified voice: the voice of a generation that has been condemned from the beginning in the bed of poverty and injustice, a generation that today, from behind bars, speaks not for its own salvation but to be “heard” and listened to.